UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Phony Moderate]

Tories now trumpeting the 'Coalition of Chaos' line again. Either their private polling is showing a closer election than the public polling or they are worried about being hurt by low turnout.

Ftr, there was a report a few weeks ago of Tory private polling showing that about 25 seats could be lost to the Lib Dems.

[Blair]

Tories now trumpeting the 'Coalition of Chaos' line again. Either their private polling is showing a closer election than the public polling or they are worried about being hurt by low turnout.

Ftr, there was a report a few weeks ago of Tory private polling showing that about 25 seats could be lost to the Lib Dems.

Someone who I'm friends with at uni (my one token tory friend) who is interning on the North-West campaign says that they did Ashcroft polling (the constituency level one) in the South east was not looking good- but they're targeting seats with less than an 8k majority.

I'd still say that the Lib Dems could easily get 20 seats- in 2015 the polls overestimated their seats, and ignored their vote count, but this time they may only get 3-4% higher but could triple their seats.

On an unrelated note Dawn Butlers radio 4 interview was one of the more awful I've heard- and Mike Kane on sky news was just as terrible

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39659304

[Blair]

The two big problems for labour is that I've had more emails/messages from people in the party about who we'll support after June in a leadership race, and who will get nominated in my safe seat (to help the balance of the PLP)

The other big problem is the complete lack of talent; I know people say it doesn't really matter but the people Labour are sending around the TV studios/radio 4 are absolutely awful. It's currently just been a cycle of Dianne Abbott, Emily Thornberry, Dawn Butler and John Mcdonnell.

You need good surrogates to the do the hours of media clips

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

May won't debate? What a chicken sh**t coward.

[Silent Hunter]

Its an absurd question because no one mines coal anymore.

There are still open cast mines in Scotland.

[DC Al Fine]

In light of the complete garbage Political Compass put out about France, what do you think they'll do for the UK?

[bore]

Tories now trumpeting the 'Coalition of Chaos' line again. Either their private polling is showing a closer election than the public polling or they are worried about being hurt by low turnout.

Ftr, there was a report a few weeks ago of Tory private polling showing that about 25 seats could be lost to the Lib Dems.

Semi paradoxically, to get a landslide the tories need to convince the electorate that it's close, and for the election to be (relatively, labour will still lose a lot of seats) close, the electorate needs to be convinced that it will be a landslide.

[parochial boy]

Tories now trumpeting the 'Coalition of Chaos' line again. Either their private polling is showing a closer election than the public polling or they are worried about being hurt by low turnout.

Ftr, there was a report a few weeks ago of Tory private polling showing that about 25 seats could be lost to the Lib Dems.

That's, erm, ironic, given the context that this election is happening in.

[jaichind]

Tories now trumpeting the 'Coalition of Chaos' line again. Either their private polling is showing a closer election than the public polling or they are worried about being hurt by low turnout.

Ftr, there was a report a few weeks ago of Tory private polling showing that about 25 seats could be lost to the Lib Dems.

Of course they would say that, regardless of weather it is true or not.  CON know how they won 2015 and is looking forward of playing the same card.  The main risk for the CON is their base does not turn out since it seems that CON are headed for a certain victory.  So it seems critical that CON have to say the CON "could lose." On the flip side I am certain the way the LIB are going to play this is to say the CON will win for sure and LAB will lose for sure.  That way pro-EU LAB voters can then vote LIB since the CON are going to win anyway.

As for LIB seats.  There seems to be 10 CON seats that LIB came within 10% in 2015, 3 LAB seats that LIB came within 10% in 2015 and 3 SNP seats that LIB came within 10% in 2015.  I can see LIB winning the 3 LAB seats.  For the 10 CON seats it seems CON will gain vote from LAB so LIB has to hope that there is a LAB collapse there for them to have a shot.  The 3 SNP seats I guess the main challenge there is the Unionist vote will consolidate behind CON so LIB has to  somehow find votes from SNP for have a shot there.  I sort of see LIB gaining around 3-5 seats to around 12 even as they will gain 3% or even a bit more in vote share.

[IceAgeComing]

It actually wouldn't surprise me if the Lib Dems ended up with more seats in Scotland than the Tories at the end of the day: a tactical Lib Dem vote is probably a hell of a lot easier for lots of people to do here than a tactical Tory vote, especially in a UK election where voting Tory would increase their majority.  An outcome of, say, 50 SNP, 3 Lib Dem, 2 Tory and 1 Labour with the Liberals finishing fourth well behind everyone else in the popular vote would make me laugh quite a bit...

I think that there are three SNP seats that the Tories have a good chance with in Scotland: Berwickshire is probably gone since it was a relatively small majority and there are a lot of Lib Dem votes that you'd have to imagine will go more Tory than SNP (this was a Lib Dem seat in 2010, Michael Moore finished third in 2015); Dumfries and Galloway for similar reasons (Labour held it in 2010 which actually was a surprise result: in 2015 the SNP had a 6,000 majority over the Tories with Russell Brown finishing third with 13,000 votes: the question is whether the Tories can pick up a lot of those Labour votes which is probably harder than getting Lib Dem votes) and Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine is also in a similar position - Lib Dems won it in 2010, fell to third in 2015, SNP majority of 7,000 over the Tories with 12,000 Liberal votes.  There are a few more that people are talking about: the North East seats are getting people excited since that's where lots of people voted for Brexit (Banff and Buchan likely was the only constituency that voted for Brexit in Scotland although we can't be 100% sure, there are also high votes for it in places like Moray as well).  The thing with those seats though are that they are the closest thing to "SNP Heartland" that there are in Scotland: the SNP have held Moray and Banff since 1987 and you'd have to imagine that could be a factor - there's also the fact that lots of those MPs were around before 2015 so almost are the main leadership of the SNP in Westminster by default.   People are also mentioning that Gordon is close but I'm not seeing it: while Alex Salmond is the sort of marmite figure that probably generates as strong a personal vote against him as for him, he had an 8,000 majority in 2015, they'd almost need every Tory and Labour vote to beat him and without a Lib Dem incumbent I can see that vote splitting between the Libs and the Tories anyway.  The big issue that I think the Tories might have that people aren't talking about is that this is a Westminster election, so the dynamics are quite a bit different since the UK-wide contest is between Labour and the Tories.  That might put off a chunk of the tactical "unionist" voters (who I don't think really exist as a strong block but meh; there are more ex-Labour voters voting SNP now than Tory and a chunk of the former oppose independence) who would normally vote Labour since voting Tory is helping them win the election rather than preventing the SNP from winning.  Its an untested hypothesis: we can see if it actually is true!

The Libs have two seats I think that could be close as well: Edinburgh West will probably go (ex-SNP MP embroiled in scandal, only a 3,000 majority in 2015 and 6,000 votes each for the Tories and Labour, plus again a Lib Dem tactical vote is easier for someone to make) and Fife North East also as well (basically a similar situation without the scandal: 4,000 SNP majority with 7,000 Tory votes and 3,000 Labour votes and that was with a new Lib Dem candidate).  Dunbartonshire East isn't being talked about much and that could be interesting: former Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson is standing again and in 2015 she did really rather well for a Lib Dem (vote only fell 2%, SNP vote went up 30% and even then the majority was only 2,000) and who knows about the Highland seats; that's an... odd part of the world.  Ought to be noted though that the Lib Dems didn't regain any highlands seats in the Holyrood elections last year while they did get Edinburgh Western and Fife North East, they are different boundaries in this election though but the general trend seems right.

For Labour, eh, they're doing well if they hold Edinburgh South.  The SNP might be able to pick that up though since their 2015 campaign there was a bit of a mess: Labour kind of need to suck up as many votes there as they can from the Tories to hold on and again this is a Westminster election where the national contest is Labour/Tory, so you wonder whether Conservative voters who might vote tactically for Labour in every other election might not want to here.  East Lothian would be their best chance of a gain, but its a laugh to even think about that.

I won't make a prediction now until I see the direction of the campaign (and hopefully some numbers from the North East seats, to see if a TORY SURGE is likely to gut all of the old SNP members); but the SNP will go into the next parliament most likely still as the third party with a big, but smaller, block of MPs.

e: the other thing to remember is that the Lib Dems probably won't get the "remain" bounce (as much as one really exists) here: those voters will most likely vote SNP since they really are the pro-Europe party in Scotland now and honestly if you're voting based on Europe then I can't see the INDEPENDENCE thing being a problem.  That will probably hurt the Lib Dems vote totals but not necessarily their seats since a lot of that vote would have ended up being spread in lots of safe seats and not electing anyone while I expect the Lib Dem vote in Scotland to be highly concentrated in Orkney, the seats I mentioned above, and most of the Highlands seats where they traditionally either win or do well while being almost non-existent in every other seat.  In the latter though I'm not entirely sure: I'm looking at the 2016 Holyrood election results there to see what happened the election after they lost them all and its mixed: some places they declined, in others they gained.  Again its hard to say anything firm about Scotland: the party system hasn't really settled down yet and it won't do so for a fair few years.

[MAINEiac4434]

In light of the complete garbage Political Compass put out about France, what do you think they'll do for the UK?

May and Faron literal Nazis, Corbyn and Lucas dead center.

[jaichind]

Good map on how limited LIB opportunities are to gain seats, especially via anti-CON voting.

[JA]

Be informed of the issues...

[Former President tack50]

In light of the complete garbage Political Compass put out about France, what do you think they'll do for the UK?

They'll probably go back to putting the main parties in the blue corner like in 2015



Only the Greens and regionalist/Northern Irish parties managed to escape, and  many were pretty close to the centre anyways

[jaichind]

It seems that there are two parallel LAB campaigns.  Corbyn will tour districts the party needs to win to gain a majority in Parliament, while party’s headquarter,who control party funds and Corbyn as a liability, plan the defense of seats with majorities of 5K votes or more, conceding LAB seats with majorities of 5K or less as lost.

[Illiniwek]

Looking forward to cheering on this man again!

[Tintrlvr]

In light of the complete garbage Political Compass put out about France, what do you think they'll do for the UK?

They'll probably go back to putting the main parties in the blue corner like in 2015



Only the Greens and regionalist/Northern Irish parties managed to escape, and  many were pretty close to the centre anyways

Except that the guy who makes Political Compass seems to be the sort of person who would have a hard-on for Jeremy Corbyn, so I'd expect him to move Labour to just below-left of center.

[Blair]

It seems that there are two parallel LAB campaigns.  Corbyn will tour districts the party needs to win to gain a majority in Parliament, while party’s headquarter,who control party funds and Corbyn as a liability, plan the defense of seats with majorities of 5K votes or more, conceding LAB seats with majorities of 5K or less as lost.

I was reading to get a majority we need to win David Davis' seat of Monmouth which has a 11,000 majority.

It's going to be a defensive campaign; the only relatively good thing is that we may save some seats with low majorities, like Ilford North, which is Wes Streetings seat, as he's a very good local MP but we could easily lose seats with a 8k+, especially if there's a high leave vote.

Basically as we know- national swing won't represent itself the same way in every seat, and we're going to get some very weird results

[IceAgeComing]

Looking forward to cheering on this man again!

Willie's on the sidelines for this one

[YL]

Constituencies won by the Tories in 2015 which voted more than 55% Remain according to the Hanretty estimates.  Those Lib Dem in 2010 are in orange.  A handful of others have recent Lib Dem history (Richmond Park, Oxford West & Abingdon, Winchester, Guildford, arguably York Outer which was supposedly notionally Lib Dem when created).  Any other plausible Lib Dem targets in the list?

over 70% Remain:

Battersea
Putney
Richmond Park (lost in by-election)
Cities of London & Westminster
Chelsea & Fulham

65% to 70% Remain:

Finchley & Golders Green
Kensington
Bath
Twickenham

60% to 65% Remain:

Enfield Southgate
St Albans
Oxford West & Abingdon
Reading East
South Cambridgeshire
Altrincham & Sale West
Cardiff North
Hitchin & Harpenden
Winchester

55% to 60% Remain:

South West Surrey
Bristol North West
Chipping Barnet
Warwick & Leamington
Guildford
Rushcliffe
Kingston & Surbiton
Esher & Walton
Cheadle
Hendon
Wokingham
Cheltenham
Henley
Brighton Kemptown
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale
Woking
Tunbridge Wells (!)
York Outer
South East Cambridgeshire

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

It seems that there are two parallel LAB campaigns.  Corbyn will tour districts the party needs to win to gain a majority in Parliament, while party’s headquarter,who control party funds and Corbyn as a liability, plan the defense of seats with majorities of 5K votes or more, conceding LAB seats with majorities of 5K or less as lost.

WTF. If they're conceding seats with narrow majorities as lost, then how in the world do they expect to pick up enough seats to gain a majority?!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Because there's no prospect of winning a majority. But don't believe everything you read about campaign strategies (certainly such calculations would not be based on raw majorities - because that varies based on turnout and the size of constituencies - but percentage ones) or, frankly, most rumours repeated by journalists at all.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Because there's no prospect of winning a majority.

The implication of the rumor is that Corbyn thinks there is.

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Point taken.

[IceAgeComing]

in order for Labour to get a majority of 1 they'd need a uniform swing around the levels that Blair got in 1997

I think it's fair to say that using Scotland ended up bad for Labour

[Former President tack50]

in order for Labour to get a majority of 1 they'd need a uniform swing around the levels that Blair got in 1997

I think it's fair to say that using Scotland ended up bad for Labour

How? Wouldn't a hung parliament most likely lead to a Labour-SNP government?

Forcing a hung parliament shouldn't be hard (let's forget about the polling for a second).